Pittsburgh’s Evolving Steel City by Susan Zummo Forney Pittsburgh’s Evolving Steel City Forging a More Diverse and Ever Cleaner Industrial Future
Once evident by the billowing smoke of steel giants, the heart of Pittsburgh’s economic engine today pulses largely unseen in a mix of nationally recognized university research centers, small manufacturers, high-tech startups, medicine, and professional and service sectors. And in what many hope is the catalyst for a new industry, the region’s first petrochemical plant will soon begin transforming ethane from the region’s abundant shale gas into polyethylene resin for plastics manufacturing. Against the backdrop of these industrial evolutions, Pittsburgh has shifted from one of the nation’s most notorious polluted cities to a leader in pollution control and high-tech advancements.
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The Rise and Fall of an Industry Icon continued to account for nearly half of national output into Situated at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny the mid-1950s. 2 Rivers and nestled within the Allegheny Mountains, Pittsburgh was initially valued as a city of both commerce and industry. Amid foreign competition, labor union strikes, and changes Pittsburgh’s premier manufacturing facility was a glass mill in the core technology used to manufacture steel, Pittsburgh’s that opened in the late 1700s. In the next hundred years industry declined over the remainder of the 20th century. By before Pittsburgh’s rapid rise to the epicenter of steel making, the 1980s, more than 75 percent of the steel-making capacity its manufacturing sector grew to include boat building, textile in the Pittsburgh region was shuttered. 3 The steel industry manufacturing, iron and steel production, and steam engine losses accounted for a significant portion of the region’s lost and boiler works. By 1840, iron and iron products were the manufacturing jobs—158,000—between 1970 and 1990. 4 In number one industry. these same two decades, the region lost more than 289,000 residents. 5 Pittsburgh became part of the nation’s rust belt. If not for industrialist Andrew Carnegie bringing the Bessemer steel-making process to Pittsburgh in the 1870s, Pittsburgh’s Clearing the Air industrial moniker may have forever remained “Iron City.” The abundance of soft coal for heating homes and fueling With a more efficient manufacturing process and abundant industrial furnaces, combined with the city’s unique topography , coal resources, Pittsburgh’s steel industry exploded, creating created an air pollution problem that plagued the city long rails for the transcontinental network and expanding products before and long after the rise of steel making. to include steel plate, pipes and structural steel. From 1870 to 1910, Pittsburgh’s population grew at a rate twice as fast To many of the city’s early residents, the smoke was a symbol as the entire nation, as immigrants poured into Pittsburgh of prosperity. To visitors, it was another matter. On a visit to via Ellis Island to work in the steel mills. 1 the city in 1884 to promote his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Mark Twain said of his trip to Mount While Pittsburgh remained a world leader in steel production Washington: “With the moon soft and mellow … we sauntered for many years, the steel industry eventually began its inevitable about the mount and looked down on the lake of fire and migration west of Pennsylvania. Nonetheless, with increased flame. It looked like a miniature hell with the lid off.” 6 demand for steel during World War I, and the growth of the auto industry and World War II, Pittsburgh’s steel production While public calls for smoke control came as early as 1804,
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-2 0% 0 19 70 197 5 19 80 198 5 19 90 199 5 20 00 Annu al C han ge (% ) Empl oy ment STohuerc dee: cRliengeio ina Pl Eittcsobnuormghic’s I nmfoar nmuaftaiocntu Sriynsgte jmob. sD eisp atrtt rmenibutte odf Cino lmarm gere cpe a rt to losses in the steel industry. After steep drops in the early 1980s, an overall decline has continued, but at a rate closer to the U.S. as a whole. Shown are manufacturing employment changes in Allegheny County, excerpted from “Allegheny County Economic Trends,” Allegheny Places, 2005.
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Pittsburgh’s Evolving Steel City by Susan Zummo Forney
the huge growth of industry and lack of concern for smoke levels kept pollution high for nearly another century. 7 Largely to quell occasional public outcries, the city passed several smoke control ordinances in the 1890s and early 1900s; however, the ordinances were weakly enforced.
Beginning in the 1940s, the city’s commitment to clear the air intensified. While World War II delayed implementation of a strict smoke control ordinance passed in 1941, it also seemed to strengthen resolve to address the problem because the increased industrial activity exacerbated the smoke issue. Over the next decade, homes were required to end coal burning for heating, and natural gas was piped into neigh - borhoods. Diesel engines replaced coal firing in locomotives and river boats, and industries began replacing worn out equipment with modern facilities. By 1948, downtown visibility improved 67 percent, and by 1954, the city received 89 percent more sunshine. 8 Pollution was once so bad in Pittsburgh that street In 1957, the Allegheny County Health Department took over lamps and headlights were in use by noon. the duties of the City Smoke Control Bureau. Regulations enacted in 1960 created the Department’s Bureau of Air By the mid-1970s, 65 percent of the particulate emissions Pollution Control and established the strongest particulate and 57 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions occurring control regulation in the nation. 9 With the help of local when the U.S. Clean Air Act was passed in 1970 had been engineering houses, manufacturers captured more and eliminated. 10 By the late 1970s, frequent air pollution alerts more of the remaining pollution from industry stacks. had largely subsided. 11
An artist’s rendition of Shell’s planned ethane cracker—situated about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River— harkens back to postcards of the many steel mills nestled between the City’s rivers and steep hillsides. Shown below are former blast furnaces of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company a few miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River.
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On a visit to the city in 1884 to promote his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Mark Twain said of his trip to Mount Washington: “With the moon soft and mellow … we sauntered about the mount and looked down on the lake of fire and flame. It looked like a miniature hell with the lid off.”
On the Horizon While Pittsburgh is still home to US Steel and other Fortune The year 2016 was a banner year for capital investment— 500 companies that helped shape the region, it is rapidly more than $10 billion—in manufacturing and energy. 12 And becoming a hub for education, medicine, small manufacturing, just this year, Pittsburgh was ranked third out of 100 metro robotics, and research. Small steel manufacturers, some areas for prosperity, according to Brookings Institution data. revitalized by the demands of the energy extraction industry, now make Pittsburgh payrolls alongside the likes of Google, With Pittsburgh’s steel heritage proudly displayed—from the Apple, Uber, and Facebook. And hi-tech investors are ever uniforms of our beloved Pittsburgh Steelers to the treasured poised to scoop up the latest spinoffs from Carnegie Mellon landmarks of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area University’s brain trust. (https://www.riversofsteel.com/about/)—the city’s future looks bright indeed. Pittsburgh’s diverse and clean economic By all accounts, Pittsburgh’s post-steel economy and environ - engine, along with the legacy of art, culture, and education ment are thriving. In 2015, Pittsburgh was listed among the sown by generous industrial giants like Carnegie, make the 11 “most livable cities in the world” by Metropolis Magazine . Steel City a place like no other. em
Susan Zummo Forney is an environmental communications and compliance consultant with EHS InfoLink Inc., and lifelong Steel City resident. E-mail: [email protected] .
Acknowledgment: The source for much of the air quality history in this article is attributed to Roger Westman (1945–2016), who served as Manager of the Allegheny County Health Department’s Air Quality Program from 1994 to 2008. Roger is remembered fondly by his friends and colleagues at the Department.
References 1. Duverge, G. Beyond Steel: The History of Pittsburgh Business ; Point Park University, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015; available online at http://online.pointpark.edu/business/ history-of-pittsburgh-business/ (accessed March 6, 2017). 2. Pennsylvania History; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2015; available online at http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-history/ 1861-1945.html (accessed March 3, 2017). 3. Duverge, G. Beyond Steel: The History of Pittsburgh Business ; Point Park University, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015; available online at http://online.pointpark.edu/business/ history-of-pittsburgh-business/ (accessed March 6, 2017). 4. Gradeck. R. The Root of Pittsburgh’s Population Drain ; Carnegie Mellon University Center for Economic Development, Pittsburgh, PA, 2003; available online at https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid= chrome-instant&rlz=1C1GIWA_enUS648US648&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=The+Root+of+ Pittsburgh%E2 %80%99s+Population+Drain&* (accessed March 8, 2017). 5. Ibid. 6. Barcousky, L. Eyewitness 1884: Mark Twain had positive view of Pittsburgh—except from atop the mount; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , July 19, 2015; available online at http://www.post-gazette.com/ local/pittsburgh-history/2015/07/19/Eyewitness-1884-Mark-Twain-had-positive-view-of-Pittsburgh-except-atop-Mount- Washington/stories/201507190008 (accessed March 11, 2017). 7. Davidson, Cliff, I. Air Pollution in Pittsburgh: A Historical Perspective; J. Air Pollut. Control Assoc. 1979 , 29 (10) 1035-1041; DOI:10.1080/00022470.1979. 10470892; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 00022470.1979.10470892 (accessed March 8, 2017). 8. Ibid. 9. Westman, R. Air Pollution in Allegheny County: A History ; Allegheny County Health Department, Pittsburgh, PA, 1990, revised 2003. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Totaling $10.2 Billion, Capital Investment in the Pittsburgh Region Reaches High Water Mark in 2016 ; Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, 2016; available online at http://www.pittsburghregion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016_BIS_Release.pdf.
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